Thus a blade is moved through a cross-section of the strand transversal to a longitudinal direction of the strand and thus a slice is cut off and the blade is moved back again in the transversal direction. Before cutting off the next slice, the strand is advanced in the longitudinal direction, the feed direction relative to the blade along a contact surface or along a support up to a stop, in particular a contact plate on a side of the blade that is opposite with respect to a main portion of the strand.
When a strand has an irregular cross-section, the support can also be a circumferentially closed form tube.
Subsequently a stop plate is being recited without limiting the invention to this embodiment of a stop. Thus a stop plate does not have to be a plate that is continuously closed along its main plane, in particular not with a uniform thickness in all portions, but the plate can have cutouts from one main surface to another as long as this maintains its function as a stop.
A stop plate of this type can also include recesses in one of the main surfaces, in particular the contact surface for the strand in order to minimize in particular the sliding friction relative to the meat strand. By the same token, the plate can also be provided as a perforated plate or as a grid.
Thus the stop plate typically moves back and forth in the transversal direction in an oscillating manner together with the blade. At an end of the cut-off process, the cut off slice flips over the portion of the circumferential edge of the stop plate, the functional edge, away from the blade onto a contact surface.
Viewed in the longitudinal direction, namely against the feed direction, the stop plate and the blade typically do not overlap, for rotating blades in particular the throwing circle of the blade but there is a radial distance between both components so that there is only minimum distance for the slice when the cut-off slice is moved through between the stop plate and the blade.
For this purpose, the radial distance would have to be as large as possible; however, in order to press strand material through, the radial distance should be as small as possible. Therefore, an acceptable median value of typically 2 mm to 10 mm is selected in practical applications. The thickness of the cut-off slice is determined by the axial distance between the cutting edge of the blade and the stop surface of the stop plate and is typically adjustable in order to be able to vary slice thickness.
Thus it is also known that the blade lifts off from the front surface of the strand in the longitudinal direction after cutting off the slice and moving the blade back in the transversal direction in order to be able to commence on the one hand side earlier with moving the strand forward and on the other hand side in order to prevent a smearing of the back side of the blade as well as of the front surface of the strand.
Different blade shapes can be used in order to respectively achieve a pulling cut.
Strip-shaped blades or bar-shaped blades, in particular straight blades which are moved for the cutting in a direction of its longitudinal extension, typically have a small width in the penetration direction into the strand for weight reasons, wherein the width is less than the cross-section of the strand and the blades have to be moved at least with their dull rear edges away from the face of the remaining strand in order to move back after the cut off process is completed and in order for the blades not to scrape along the face of the strand with their rear edge.
Even for a sufficient width, thus greater than the cross-section of the strand, this is advantageous in order to prevent a smearing of the backside of the blade as well as of the front face of the strand.
Circular disk-shaped blades which rotate about an axis, in particular about its central axis, have to be offset with their axis initially approximately about the radius of the blade from an edge of the cross-section of the strand in the transversal direction thus radially so that moving the strand forward can be commence.
For the same reasons as for a bar-shaped or strip-shaped blade, additional lifting of the blade is recommended after an end of the cutting process in the longitudinal direction.
Rotating sickle-shaped blades where a radial distance of the cutting edge from the rotation axis increases along the cutting edge and which taper into a point towards their free end very quickly move out of the overlap with the cross-section of the strand after completing the cutoff process. However, using them together with a stop plate which is used as a stop for the strand is disadvantageous.
Namely, in the longitudinal direction, an axial distance shall be provided between the outer circumference of the blade and the concave functional edge of the stop plate wherein the axial distance shall be the same everywhere along the extension of the functional edge.
For a sickle-shaped blade this could only be accomplished by pivoting the stop plate at least during the cutting process together with the sickle blade viewed in longitudinal direction but by not rotating it together with the sickle blade in order to provide a stop between an end of a first cut off process and a beginning of a second cut off process for the advanced strand.
Thus this requires a complex mechanical configuration.